Socializing can be hard, especially starting a conversation with a stranger – here are some tips from experts

Humans are social creatures – we live in groups, rely on others to survive and gossip at parties. But socializing can be hard, even for social creatures. Especially the first part: starting a conversation.

“It can feel daunting to go up to a stranger and start a conversation because in some instances, we are not sure how we will be received,” says Elaine Swann, a lifestyle and etiquette expert, and founder of the Swann School of Protocol. Will the other person be friendly or standoffish? Will they try to pull you into a multilevel marketing scheme? Will it simply be awkward?

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Joshua Sullivan was abducted from his church by four gunmen, but is now recovering and in ‘excellent condition’

South African police have rescued an American pastor who was abducted last week while he was conducting a sermon, as kidnappings have soared over the last decade in the country.

Three unidentified suspects were killed during the “high-intensity shootout” on Tuesday in which Joshua Sullivan, a missionary from Tennessee, was rescued, the Hawks, the police unit that deals with serious crime in South Africa, said in a statement.

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With the bin workers of Birmingham having been on strike for more than a month, we can but wonder what the players of Paris Saint-Germain made of the stuffed polythene sacks of stinking rubbish piled high and lining the streets as their coach wended its way towards Villa Park last night. After going 2-0 down on the night to trail 5-1 on aggregate with little over an hour to play, the players of Aston Villa might have been excused for downing tools too, withdrawing their labour from this season’s Bigger Cup in order to focus on qualifying for next season’s by expending as little energy as possible before Saturday’s qualification six-pointer against Newcastle in the Premier League.

He was a gin-swilling Scottish-Italian heroin addict who set Argentina’s music scene ablaze – baffling the junta, who would arrest his audiences. As a biopic looms, we look at the fast life and early death of the frontman still worshipped today

In 1980, a tall, thin man landed in Buenos Aires airport, at the height of Argentina’s military dictatorship. His name was Luca Prodan, a Scottish-Italian rocker, and he had just finished the last of his methadone on the flight over. His arrival would soon send shockwaves through Argentina when he started a band called Sumo, acquainted the country with post-punk, and became a national legend who lives on, his music still earning hundreds of millions of streams. “When I saw Sumo in 1982,” says Prodan’s younger brother Andrea, “I thought, ‘This is more than just a band. This is like the Velvet Underground.’”

But, despite Prodan’s strong ties to Europe and his high esteem in Argentina, he is barely known outside of the country. That looks set to change – thanks to a forthcoming biopic called Time Fate Love, produced by Birdman co-writer Armando Bo. “Luca changed music history,” Bo says. “Here, he’s a god.”

• All-rounder tested positive due to ‘genuine error’
• Barker: ‘I feared for the loss of my career’

Hampshire’s Keith Barker has said he “feared for the loss of my career” during a nine-month wait to learn his punishment for a failed drug test caused by what he described as “a genuine administrative error”.

Barker has been cleared to return to professional cricket on 4 July, 12 months after he was told he had tested positive for the prohibited substance indapamide, which he had been prescribed to treat high blood pressure, and provisionally suspended. The length of his ban was decided last month and announced on Wednesday, one week short of 11 months after he took the out-of-competition test.

Heist took place at Love Jewels in downtown Los Angeles on Sunday after thieves bore through levels of concrete

Burglars tunneled through a concrete wall to gain access to a Los Angeles jewelry store, making off with at least $10m worth of watches, pendants, gold chains and other merchandise, police said.

The heist happened around 9.30pm on Sunday at Love Jewels on Broadway in the heart of downtown, according to officer David Cuellar with the LA police department.

She’s threatening to launch an ‘uncensored and uncancellable’ online platform – like we don’t have enough of those already

Liz Truss has unveiled her new chapter, and if you can think of a better place for the madcap-economist former prime minister to do so than a cryptocurrency conference in Bedford, it would at the very least have to involve pirates or chimpanzees.

The “deep state”, “the elite” and the mainstream media cut short her time in office, so from here she sees no option but to launch her own social media platform . It’s a puzzler, because if she wants to praise Donald Trump and Elon Musk, peddle dark conspiracy theories and give the fullest possible account of her grandiose self-belief, she’d be in great company on X. But that wouldn’t be thinking big enough – she wants to create an entirely new network, “uncensored and uncancellable”, which will grow a grassroots movement of Trussites.

Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist

Enfield council challenges restaurant chain’s rationale for cutting down centuries-old tree in Whitewebbs Park

Toby Carvery has been threatened with legal action by a council over the felling of an ancient oak in a park in north London.

The restaurant chain is facing national outrage after its decision to fell the up to 500-year-old tree without warning on 3 April.

Authorities say suspect had a ‘lust’ for killing and used drugs to paralyse the respiratory muscles of victims

Prosecutors have charged a Berlin palliative care doctor with the murder of 15 patients, alleging he acted out of a “lust” for killing.

The 40-year-old suspect is accused of killing 12 women and three men between September 2021 and July 2024 using a deadly cocktail of sedatives. German press reports identified the suspect as Johannes M, but prosecutors have not released a name.